


What the storm washes up on the shore

by CheerUpLovely



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Episode Fix-it, F/M, Post Dark Waters, post 4x09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-05-06 00:58:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5396873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheerUpLovely/pseuds/CheerUpLovely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What comes next can only start when she wakes.</p><p>Oliver and Felicity share a moment when she wakes up in the hospital.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What the storm washes up on the shore

When her eyes flicker open, the first time, she’s in pain. She panics, and fights the anesthetic wearing off until Oliver has to hold her shoulders down to stop her thrashing about and injuring herself any further. She cries and begs him to stop it hurting, until the nursing team comes in and sedates her. After, it focuses hard on the way Donna cries into his shoulder to stop him having the first panic attack since they moved to Ivy Town.

The second time she comes to, it’s laced in confusion. She’s so drowsy and drugged that she just repeats that she wants to go home, and he can tell she doesn’t know where she is. Donna tries to calm her too, but that attracts the nurse’s attention again and the mass of voices asking her questions freaks her out so much that she cries for Oliver, bleeds through her dressing and is sedated before she can upset herself any further.

Four days after he thought he’d lost her - multiple times in one day, at that - she wakes properly.

He’d dozed at her side for a few hours during the night, after Donna went home to shower and rest at his insistence, so when he hears her breathing change and knows she’s waking up, he wants to make it as easy as possible. After the first time she woke, they’d upped her medication, and after the second time they’d lowered it, so he fears either outcome this time.

His hand finds her cheek, coasting up into her hair despite its straw-like texture after not being cleaned for four days - his hand squeezing hers as she inhales deeply and instantly regrets it. Half-sleeping Felicity barely remembers her own name, let alone that she has a bullet wound that had resulted in a punctured lung that’s far from healed.

“Hey, take it slow,” he whispers, as her eyes blink open slowly and search around her.

She finds him after a long few seconds, settling on him and leaning her head into the cradle of his palm. Her eyes close again as she finds a breathing pattern that doesn’t hurt so much, and the next time she opens them she lands her gaze on him straight away.

“Hey,” he repeats, his eyes watery as he conjures a smile for her benefit. “How are you feeling?”

Her brow furrows as if she’s searching for the word, and when she decides which suits best it’s not what he was expecting. “Floaty,” she whispers, her voice hoarse from lack of use.

This time, his smile is more genuine. Having the doctors reassure him that she’ll make a full recovery is one thing, but seeing this taste of her, this shimmer of the Felicity that he’s been terrified to lose, this does far more to calm the storm within him. “You’re on good drugs,” he tells her.

“That’s nice,” she says with a small sigh, her cheek nuzzling into his fingertips. Each blink is still slow, as languid as the way she kisses him on a Sunday morning.

“I missed you,” he murmurs, lifting the hand that holds hers so he can brush his lips over her knuckles. “Scared me,” he confesses through the tightening in her throat.

“Dn’worry,” she mumbles, slurring her assurance into one muffled word. Luckily, he’s fluent at her Morning Tone and knows exactly what she’s communicating. “Accident. No biggie.”

“You were shot, Felicity,” he tells her gently, his eyes fixed on the lump of the bandages beneath her hospital gown. He hates this colour on her now, he’s decided, which is a shame because she has a lovely blue nightgown that he usually loves her in.

“Nah, accident,” she repeats, her hand scratching at his cheek as if she’s petting a dog. Her lips tease into a smile that’s half-masked by the painkillers. “Just spilled a latte on it.”

The next sound that chokes out of his thoroughly nerve-bitten lips is a similar to a laugh. “Really?” he asks her.

“Yeah,” she says with a sleepy conviction.

He taps his hand at the edge of her bandage, far enough from the stitches that it won’t hurt as his fingers dance across the edge of it. “‘Cause this looks like a bullet hole,” he tells her softly, allowing some amusement to slip into his tone.

She lifts her head a little, looking down at where his hand is with a frown. She hums, resting her head down after. “My proposal was in a bad neighbourhood,” she mutters.

And he can’t help it, he stands up so he can lean over and kiss her, just a feather-soft touch of his lips to hers because it’s been days, and she’s going to be okay, he can see that for himself now. “I love you,” he shudders out into her hair as she just hums again, patting his chest and setting her hand back down on the bed beside her. “

“Lo’yu,” she mumbles back, and as simply as she had woken, she drifts back to sleep.

 

 


End file.
